


The 4th Truth

by Flare8778



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 03:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flare8778/pseuds/Flare8778
Summary: Ana Amari has made mistakes in her life, and she knows she needs to make good on them. That's why she chooses to tell her daughter that she's still alive.She doesn't know exactly what to expect when she invites Fareeha back into her life, but certainly not for Fareeha to remind her that there is a man who thinks his wife is dead.Reminiscing is all well and good, but what happens when Fareeha convinces her to meet a widowed man, who was never really a widow?





	The 4th Truth

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for Overwatch and on AO3. There isn't a lot of Ana stuff so I hope you enjoy! I'll add characters and any additional tags as they come up, but the current tags give you an idea of what the tenor of the whole fic will be like. :)

For Ana Amari, there were 3 universal truths that dictated every decision she had ever made.

The first was the truth of her dedication to her daughter Fareeha. Fareeha was her life and she would give anything and everything to protect her little girl.

The second truth was her unwavering faith in her Strike Commander Jack Morrison. With that came her belief in Overwatch and loyalty to her position as his second in command.

But third, and only third, came her fierce love for Sam.

He was a public servant in Canada. He had strength not only of body, but of conviction. That is what she had fallen for. And maybe a bit for his boyish charm. The way his hair would curl slightly and was long at the nape of his neck. The way she longed to twirl it through her fingers.

A shrill whistle pulled her away from her thoughts. Her muscles creaked as she slid back her chair and stood. Supporting her comrades on the battlefield got a bit more difficult everyday, but she wouldn't give in the the cold ache of age. There was still work to be done.

She made her way to the kitchen and took the kettle off the burner. She already had a teacup out and grabbed a canister of her homemade blend of tea. Some camomile, some dried honey, lemon zest, and just a touch of lemongrass. Something soothing that would guard against the cold.

Winter was such a good time for memories, for reminiscing. She brought her steeping tea with her to the bay window that overlooked her yard and the streets of Kings Row. It was all covered in a layer of powdery white snow. How she missed her home in Egypt, but she hadn't lived there in years. Not since she had been gone to the world. Oh, Sam... She had thought about him often in these long, dead years. Almost as often as Fareeha. It was snowing that day too. That day when she met him. Back when she was but a girl, a sniper in the Egyptian Army.

* * *

 Ana had met Sam before she was much at all. Not even the best in her field just yet, but close. Jack and Gabi were only whispering ideas of what would one day become Overwatch, but Ana had not met them quite yet. At the tender age of 19, she was training and working harder than the average soldier for something. She didn't know exactly, but she was prepared to answer the call.

Vacation wasn't a word in her vocabulary. Fresh faced and young, her work was everything to her. But after 3 straight years in the Army, her superior officer had made it clear that either she take a week off and go traveling or he lock her access to the firing range for 2 weeks. She had grudgingly agreed to the vacation.

She'd thrown a dart at a spinning globe and hit Canada. Her superior had questioned her choice. He asked her ‘who in their right mind visited Canada in the dead of winter?’ But Ana did not see a reason to change her destination. She didn't want to go anywhere so Canada would do. And so here she was.

In Toronto.

Ana exited the airport with her expertly packed suitcase rolling closely behind her. As soon as she stepped out of the building, a frigid blast set her cheeks with color despite the tan of her sun kissed skin. She tugged her coat tightly around her body and held out her hand to hail a cab.

A single flash of yellow later and her hail was successful. That's when she saw him. Pale compared to most men in Egypt with dark hair that curled slightly, tendrils of it escaping from his hat and embracing his temples and the nape of his neck. He had warm, brown eyes and laugh lines that would surely become dimples should he care to smile. And then he did and she was sure.

“Evening ma’am, let me get your bags... er, bag actually.” He popped the trunk and lifted her suitcase in, “Traveling light or are you a local returning home?”

Ana was not used to people being so friendly. In fact, in Egypt many people feared her the way you would a protector. Sure your bodyguard could keep you from harm, but in a pinch they could always overpower you. But this man, he had no idea who she was. He didn't know she could wield a sniper with almost pinpoint accuracy. And Ana had to admit... it was kind of nice.

“I don't own much, and what I do own I pack well.” She wasn’t really used to such casual conversation. Was that a good answer? Or did it sound standoffish? She didn't know but she hoped it sounded natural.

“Military?” He asked her.

Her heart plummeted. So much for natural. This was exactly why a vacation was a terrible idea. As the saying went, you can take the girl out of the barracks...

“Army. You could tell.” That last bit wasn't a question, but he took it as one.

“No offense ma’am but I haven't seen a person who wasn’t military fit all their possessions into one suitcase, particularly not one this small. Plus, it’s in your bearing and the way your eyes search the crowd even when you’re at rest. It's nice,though.” He held out a hand. “The name’s Sam.”

“Ana.” She took his hand and gave it two efficient pumps before releasing him. He was smiling at her again and she wasn't sure how to respond. We're all the cabbies in Canada this genial? This observant? As if he heard her thoughts, Sam ran up on the curb and opened the car door for her.

Not sure how else to respond, Ana nodded her gratitude and slid into the backseat of the car. She buckled immediately and watched Sam discreetly as he maneuvered around the cab and got back in on the drivers side. “So...Where to, Miss Ana?”

Miss...? She was so surprised by the title that she didn't respond for too long. He was making a strange sort of eye contact from the rear view mirror and the fact that she noticed that at all drove thoughts from her mind. Could she be anymore awkward? But all the racing thoughts happened on the inside thanks to years of training. Outward, her motions were smooth as she pulled out her paperwork to reply.

“The Adelaide, please.”

His eyes smiled at her, then he whistled, impressed. “That's a nice hotel. Let's get on our way.”

Ana blessed the cold when her cheeks heated. She hadn't even looked into the hotel, she'd booked it on recommendation alone and hadn't even bothered to look at the cost.

“So what brings you to Mississauga so deep in the Winter. We’re hardly a Christmas tourist location. No Blizzardworld, no nothing really.”

Ana almost startled at his question. The pleasantries were over, the business conducted, so why was he still probing? She wanted to ask why he was so interested in her, but came once again to the conclusion that he was just talkative and friendly. He certainly looked harmless. She had a sleep dart gun strapped to her right thigh under the coat so she was in no danger. Normally, she'd be able to ignore people like him but something about the crinkle near his eyes kept distracting her and luring her back into the conversation.

“Mississ...” Ana had excellent English but struggled with the word. “I thought I was in Toronto.”

“The airport is just outside it in Mississauga. The hotel you'll be staying in is near the line though and technically in Toronto. Just a few miles away.”

Ana nodded even though he was looking at the road.

“So then, what brings you to Toronto?”

Ana looked up and met his eyes in the rearview once more before turning away quickly. She said the first thing that came to mind.

“Fate.”

Ana felt the heavy silence at that and laughed gently for a moment before expanding. “I threw a dart at a globe and it landed on Canada.”

“That's beautiful.” He said, too seriously.

“Dart throwing?”

“Your laugh.”

* * *

A knock sounded on her door breaking Ana from her reverie. She looked over and realized her over steeped tea was no longer steaming. She spared a sigh for it before the knock sounded again.

Lifting her tired body, she checked for the sleep dart gun on her right hip before she answered the door. It was primed and loaded. One look through the peephole and it was clear she would not need it. She opened the door.

“Fareeha.” Ana ushered her daughter in, brushing snow off her coat. The woman was tolerant of her mother’s fussing, and it took Ana a moment to remember it had been years, not days since she had last seen her daughter. Ana stepped back awkwardly as Fareeha righted her jacket.

“I'm just happy you're here. Is this about the letter?”

Fareeha nodded, still reluctant to speak. Ana had sent her a letter explaining it all. The shot she'd hesitated to take, how she hadn't wanted her daughter to join Overwatch, how she'd let them all believe she was dead.

Looking at them from the outside, it would be easy to see the mother and daughter who would visit for the holidays. They had the same dark skin and similar tattoos under their eyes, though Ana’s was on her left and Fareeha carried hers under her right. Ana had hers under her right eye too once, but the Spider’s shot had obliterated it entirely. They stood, the younger Amari taller but with the same dark hair. The expression though. That is where they differed.

Ana was guarded and elated. Fareeha was guarded and hurt.

“Take off your coat, Fareeha. I'll put on a pot of tea.”

Fareeha shook her head, refusing what would likely be the too remniscent tea her mother would make for her. Something that would no doubt smell of rosehips and cinnamon and reek heavily of nostalgia.

But Ana disregarded it, really as she would have expected her mother to do.

“Nonsense. Make yourself at home, Habibti.”

And then she was off, unaware of the hole she ripped in her daughter’s chest. Habibti. How long had it been since last she heard her mother’s voice lilt in that familiar cadence. She knew every second of the 6 long years. It was so close. And the swell of emotion had her reaching out a hand to her mother’s back, a stifled sob somewhere deep in her throat. She wanted to be 13 again, she wanted to run into her arms and be held and-

She swallowed the well of emotion. She wasn’t 13. She was 32 years old and her mother was a liar. And she had lied for years. Lied to her. To her father. To the world.

And Captain Ana Amari thought she could fix it with tea. Typical.

Fareeha took a deep breath and steadied herself for what would likely be a very emotional night. Her mother was still preparing tea, so she took the opportunity to look around her mother’s home. ‘House’ she mentally corrected. Her home was in Egypt, in Canada, in Overwatch.

But what did it matter to Fareeha Amari where Ana Amari was at home?

The bitterness tasted acrid as it coiled in her abdomen and clawed its way up her esophagus. She took another breath and stepped forward to examine the living room.

It was not as cozy as she would have expected. Lived in, yes, but also impermanent. Everything was neat, orderly, warm even. But it also looked like it could be left. Like she could walk away from it like she were never there.

Like she had her family.

There were no pictures on the walls. A lone, worn couch flanked by two end tables. And there on the coffee table, a rifle. It was disassembled and immaculate. In a well worn room it looked shiny and new and out of place. She spotted two different types of rounds for it.

Both swirled ominously and had sharp injection points. One was an almost black purple and the other a deep yellow that let off a faint luminescence. A single eyebrow jumped up at that. Biotic, then. A rifle that could hurt and heal.

Fareeha didn’t recognize why the palpitations in her chest began to tattoo her chest in rapid stacatto, she didn’t notice that was hope that was settling into her bones. Because maybe her mom could fix this. She really wanted her to.

But at the same time, questions needed answers. Otherwise what forgiveness could she possibly offer for something so unforgivable?

Fareeha found her feet moving her through the living space. Her fingertips brushing against the places her mother would have most often touched. Her eyes finally landing on a cup of tea, no longer steaming, sitting virtually untouched on the large sill of a bay window that looked out onto city lights and snow.

“Do you remember when we took you here?”

Fareeha startled slightly. Her mother was so stealthy she hadn’t even been aware that the woman had snuck up behind her.

Ana Amari placed a warm mug in her hands and heat suffused her daughter’s fingertips. It smelled like cinnamon and camomile with that hint of rosehips. Because of course it did. Two partially dissolved sugar cubes rested at the bottom, just as she preferred. So it would get sweeter as she went.

The pain entangled with those little details.

Fareeha drew herself to the question. “I do not.”

Ana nodded. “You were so small. Your father always told me I needed to travel for fun too. Not just work.”

Her mother perched herself in the widow comfortably, one leg extended, the other bent vertically so that she could wrap her arms around it and rest her chin on the pocket it created. Her mother looked so small that way. She never recalled her mother looking small. Ana Amari was larger than life, powerful and devoted.

“Every year,” she continued, “He had me throw a dart at a globe and that’s where we would go. The year you turned 5, we came here. To King’s Row.”

Fareeha felt the heat in her fingertips and knew it would melt the glacier that had formed in her heart. She put it down, looked down on the small woman ahead of her.

“In winter?”

“Always. Sam loved winter.”

“Loves. Father loves winter. He is still alive and he never pretended to have died.”

Ana winced slightly. “You are right. But I don’t deserve to know him now. I don’t deserve to know whether or not he has changed.”

Fareeha frowned. That’s the argument she was prepared to make. But hearing her mother, her goddamn mother, make the argument? It somehow sounded less valid. Sad. Pitiful even. So words slipped out, ones she couldn’t even tell if she meant.

“But he deserves to hear you say that.”

Ana’s head lifted sharply. She seemed too stunned for words for a long moment. Fareeha took a sip of tea. It was heartbreakingly delicious.

“Faree-”

But she would never hear what her mother was going to say.

Ana didn’t say a thing to excuse her sudden pause, just fished her hand into a pocket. She shuffled in it for a moment, reaching into some nested area. Her eyes were slightly glazed over, as if there were tears shining in them.

Fareeha felt her heart soften a bit, though they hadn’t said the words to fix this yet... if those words even existed. The reason for the gleam became easy as her mother finally drew her hand from her pocket.

Face up in her palm was a coin. It was almost as large as her hand and glowed with a pale blue light. The logo emblazoned on the bronzed metal was familiar. Even Fareeha felt that pang of longing that had her mother reaching to wipe away a tear.

“Is that-” Fareeha didn’t finish the question before the answer was there, the slightest bob of her mother’s head. Then an irregular breath that was her voice as Ana Amari said, eyes blowing wide...

“It is a recall.”

Ana took a deep breath that felt about as useful as if it had been through cheesecloth. To initiate a recall, right now, in this political climate... It was insane. It made a healthy dose of paranoia shudder its way to her toes.

“Overwatch is... reinstituted?”

Ana didn’t miss the fair amount of hope and disbelief that laced her daughter’s voice.

“Let us not jump to any conclusions, Fareeha. I don’t know who could have possibly done this.”

A short moment. “Could it have been Commander Morrison?”

“No.” The answer was quick, resolute.

“How could you possibly know tha-” But a quick shift of the eyes told Fareeha everything she needed to know. “You know him still. He knows you are alive.”

Ana forcibly held back a click of her tongue. The shock maybe? Maybe that is what made her answer so carelessly. A sigh slipped from her lips instead and she didn’t bother keeping more from her daughter this time. She gave Fareeha a quick nod of confirmation.

Jack Morrison was alive and they knew each other.

But the reaction Fareeha exhibited was not relief or awe it was... anger.

“We thought him dead as well. Did he make you do it? Were you following his goddamn orders again?”

The words dragged Ana into a different time, to a different and yet related voice who had also said them.

* * *

“You missed her birthday again, Ana. She misses her mom. Were you following his goddamn orders again? Abandoning your family for the sake of Jack Morrison.”

Her eyes scanned the living room, resting on torn streamers and a happy birthday banner that hung limply from one nail. She couldn’t quite meet her husband’s eyes, couldn’t even defend herself really. Just the same tired excuse she regurgitated like it would change anything, like it was worth anything at all.

“He needed me, Sam. The world needed me. There were people in danger.”

“Your daughter needed you. Every night she cries herself to sleep because she wants you to read her a story!”

Her face crumpled. But there was her Sam, usually so calm and collected, now fiery and passionate protecting the life they had created. His hair had a little gray in it, but it was still primarily dark with that touch of curl she loved. In his frustration, he had run his hands through the waves and disheveled them into a careless, handsome mess.

But her Fareeha. Certainly one day she would understand why she let her down, how hard her mother worked to keep her and the rest of the world safe. Certainly Sam knew...

“Fareeha is strong. She will understand.”

Sam let out a bitter half laugh. For some reason, that hurt so much more than the accusations, the guilt, and the blame. Her heart thudded in her chest and a gauzy haze swept over her, stealing away her clear head like only Sam could.

“I understand why Fareeha struggles. She is a child. What is your excuse?” She shot the words at him with burning venom. Hot and viscous, she watched them slide under his skin.

“Do you know how hard it is to love you, Captain Amari?”

* * *

Ana was dragged back to the present by an impatient huff of air. She belatedly realized that she hadn’t answered yet. The question hung heavy like fog between them, dense and stifling. Ana couldn’t articulate the answer, couldn’t reorder her thoughts back into a human language she could share with her daughter.

“Have you cheated on Dad? Is that why you ran off with Jack Morrison?”

Anger this time. It slithered down her throat, crackling with electricity, leaving pain in its wake as it prevented her from drawing breath. Her face warmed and her eyes shone, but she somehow tempered it, stamped back the biting words that could break this fragile, thin glass string. The tether that was her relationship with her daughter.

“I have never, in my entire life-” A shrill beep cut her off. Ana frowned and fished a phone from her cloak. The screen lit up and she scanned it quickly before tapping a quick reply and returning it to the folds of the tattered cloth.

“Fareeha, I can’t give you all the answers you want just now. Not with...” Her eyes drifted to the still glowing medallion. “But I want you to hear me out. And I know you want to investigate this recall with me.”

A nod from Fareeha.

“You would do it alone if not with me.”

“I would prefer your help, Mom.” Another shiver, this one warm and nostalgic. That word. Mom.

“And I yours, Habibti. I will tell you my whole story. Why I did what I did. How I met up with Jack after the incident. I promise to tell you everything. But first, we turn our attention to this. Is that alright with you?”

She watched the need for answers, to ones that had drawn her here despite herself, war with her daughter’s desire to know more about Overwatch. Which answers first? All answers owed.

Was that doubt she saw on her daughter’s face? Maybe doubt that the answers could fix that glass thread between them? Doubt that nostalgia and the two easiness already between them was enough. That it was a trick of Ana’s. Something to draw Fareeha in close so that she would forget the years of pain.

“There is too much pain to be healed, my daughter. I know that, but I swear on my position as former Captain Amari of Overwatch, I will give you all you need. I will clear up every secret. So once again, is it all right to go this path? To pursue Overwatch first?”

It was telling that she had to swear on a dead position, not her love for Sam or for Fareeha. Those things did not seem important to her, though they truly were. But that position. She saw the look in Fareeha’s eyes. The older, hardened Fareeha who thought that position was everything to her. Who thought not entirely wrong. The words that her daughter spoke were barely over a whisper, like she couldn’t quite believe she was saying them.

“Yes. Let us investigate this recall first. Together.”


End file.
